Being a legal-focused blog, Volokh commentator Will Blaude points out that their agreement is in fact an enforceable contract, contrary to The Ethicist’s analysis. But my interest is more in The Ethicist’s take that is not such a huge wrong, a take seemingly echoed by some of the comments:
And…
Are you kidding me?
Yes, he should be sued to force him to live up to his agreement. What a dick. And what a useless piece of non-advice from The Ethicist.
“Like hell I offered to match a $10,000 annual donation. I said “a thousand” and he must have misheard me. Then every year after that I said “how about the same deal?” and he accepted. It’s not my fault he needs a hearing aid. And I never said that bit about “nailed me.””
Anyway, the odds of this ever going to a lawsuit sound extremely poor. The poor flim-flammed guy who Doesn’t Like The Opera probably doesn’t want to be widely known as a jackass.
IMO! The Statute of Frauds would not apply. Still, I would not advise a lawsuit. The museum is presumably a third party beneficiary of the contract and perhaps could bring an action, but suing for “donations” sounds like really bad PR. I’d just expose the SOB to the world as a scumbag.
I think that, while he wasn’t as generous as he promised, he still gave $4000 to the museum, which isn’t really small change. So while he lied and didn’t live up to the agreement, which is bad, he still did, overall a good and altruistic thing.
“First world problems” doesn’t quite cover it, does it? Yeah the wealthy socialite who pranked the other wealthy socialite is a bit more of an asshole than the average wealthy New york socialite, but so what?
I think you’re misleading people by not indicated that part was form the “comments” section, and not from The Ethicist.
The Ethicist is giving ethical, not legal advice. He’s not qualified to give the latter. I think his advice was just fine. Deal with this on a personal level. Suing the guy would be a dick move, IMHO.
He swindled a donation out of the person he made the agreement with. That’s not good or altruistic.
That said, the original agreement is kind of bizarre. Why would you give money to a cause you don’t like in return for someone giving to a cause they don’t like, rather then just having each person give the same money to the cause they approve of?
In anycase, I think gossip is kind of underrated as an answer to these sorts of things. The guy reneged on an agreement, and letting his peers know he’s the kind of person that does so would both serve the purpose of making it harder for him to victimize others and provide some measure of revenge.
Thinking about this a little more, I wonder if the original agreement wasn’t kind of unethical. I have trouble thinking of why someone would go to the trouble of setting something like this up unless they were trying to pad the numbers on the number of unique donors they were attracting to their cause. So instead of giving 20,000$ to their own organizations, it was better to give $10,000 to their organization, $10,000 to the other guys in return for him doing the same, and both men end up looking like they have attracted a new generous donor to their cause.
Assuming that’s right, both men tried to game the system, and then one guy went ahead and screwed the other guy as well. That might help explain why he laughed at the other guys protests as well, no honour amongst thieves and all that.
While I agree he is a dick, I doubt he could be “forced” to live up to his agreement. That said, I would send him a strongly worded letter saying I expect a check sent to me, payable to the charity, that makes up for the $46k he cheated them out of. I would also tell him I was gonna send a letter to the my charity’s director apologizing for (his) my friend’s accounting error by explaining that a clerical error led to his donation being $1k instead of $10k. I would also tell the director that he could expect a check for the balance in the near future. I would include his name, address, email, etc. in case they director wanted to personally thank him for his $56k donation.
Is there even a contract here? Is there any consideration present in an agreement solely to donate equal amounts of money to parties other than the parties to the agreement? The art museum may have a case, but I sincerely doubt that any reliance exists.
See, if the guy is a jerk and you possibly can sue him for his jerkishness (without it hurting you), I say go ahead! I don’t get the idea that he’s a jerk but you shouldn’t do anything about it. You have an ethical duty to do what you can about it. If your ethics say otherwise, then I think you’re saying that what he did is ethical. If something is unethical, and you are in a position to stop it, you, by definition, try to stop it.
Great responses, gang. Speaking generally, I’m surprised this board doesn’t address that NYT weekly column more often.
Pulling the legal system into this seems like a poor use of resources. Spreading accurate gossip seems fine to me. Accuracy would address the question whether both parties were trying to game the system, as seems likely (not certain) given what we know.
Consider suing if you and somebody you trust think this would set a useful precedent. Frankly I doubt it. The letter writer is running into a Dunning-Kruger problem: given that entering into such a weird agreement indicates poor judgment, he shouldn’t trust his unaided ability to follow through via the law.
Following up with John Mace’s point, the middle quote box came from the Ethicist and the last came from the comments section. The latter is atopical, but not irrelevant. The decision to give to the opera rather than say 3rd world child vaccination contains moral content. Of course opera donators have a right to do as they please. And others have the right to scoff at them. But rights are only a small portion of ethics so the last 2 observations are predictable but not especially relevant.
ETA: Plug for Volokh Conspiracy, one of the few sources of non-mundane conservative commentary.
Assuming that the letter’s author would have provided $10,000 each year to the art charity had he not been duped into giving that money to the opera, then it is obvious that the art charity has been harmed. Since the guy sits on the board of the art charity, he has a real interest in seeing that the agreement is carried out in full.
I don’t see this scenario any ethically (and I would hope legally) different than calling in to a charity and pledging a large amount, but then only mailing in a check worth a pittance.
I think the author would be on good grounds to threaten to take the guy to court. I disagree with those who think fraud is a “first world problem.”
The problem is that giving the money to the museum at all instead of the opera was based on this agreement, which was not fulfilled. That $4000 should not have gone to the museum at all. Therefore, hereinafter, forthwith and tout de suite he must break into the museum at night, steal artworks with a street value of $4000, sell them, and give that additional money to the opera.
That is the ethical solution. The legal solution is to take the $40,000 from the opera and give it the museum because I don’t like opera.
The Statute of Frauds doesn’t reach all contracts, just those in certain categories… Sale of real property, sale of personal property over $500, co-signing of a loan, etc.
Not sure what else, but I am certain it’s not “all contracts have to be written to be enforceable.”
Ok then. Can two people contract with each other to give away money to other parties? When one of the two people doesn’t fulfill his commitment what damages does the other person suffer?
Sure. The dual promises of performance are each the consideration for the other person’s performance. “I promise to paint your garage if you promise to mulch my garden,” was an example I remember from Contracts.